For actor, ‘Venom’ was different kind of superhero mission
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – He laughs at the notion, but it’s true: Tom Hardy has gone Hollywood.
The well-inked English actor, who rose to fame in raw, brawny movies such as “Bronson” and “Warrior,” has been slowly ascending in major studio films for some time. “The Dark Knight Rises.” “Mad Max: Fury Road.” “Dunkirk.” “The Revenant,” which earned him his first Oscar nomination.
Cut to 2018, and he’s the face of Sony Pictures’ burgeoning Marvel universe, thanks to the comic book adaptation “Venom,” which opened in theaters Friday.
“I’m half the face,” Hardy said deadpan, pointing to Exhibit A: a movie poster 10 feet away in which the actor’s head is half-covered by a terrifying, toothy alien.
In “Venom,” Hardy plays the amorphous, carnivorous parasite who slimes into San Francisco and into the body of an investigative journalist named Eddie Brock (also played by Hardy). The PG-13 film is far darker than its Disney-backed, “Avengers”style brethren.
“I’m old now and ugly enough and long enough in the tooth to take on board certain responsibilities and accountabilities and not be swallowed up by something that perhaps I may have feared as a younger actor,” said Hardy, 41, who also is executive producer on the movie.
In short, it was time to take a leap. And “Venom” is a gamble. The violent character, who haunts Earth feasting on human heads and ripping off limbs, first appeared on the big screen in “Spider-Man 3,” then played by Topher Grace.
And Spider-Man himself, to whom Venom is inextricably linked in Marvel comic books, was “off the table from the start” to appear in “Venom,” Hardy said. (Thanks to a complex Hollywood partnership, Sony has the rights to Spider-Man but effectively lent the character out to Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe for five movies — which is why Spidey was recently in “Avengers: Infinity War.”)
Hardy persisted, determined to make a film for as broad an audience as possible. It may pay off: Although critics haven’t been won over, “Venom” is set to win the weekend’s box-office title, with an estimated take of $60 million.
“I’m not a hardline comic-book fan. I’m a creative artist, and I’m going to maybe upset some people, but some people I’m not,” Hardy said.
For months before filming, Hardy would workshop Venom’s voice, playing with recordings on GarageBand at home while sending paintings and drawings of the symbiote to director Ruben Fleischer.
“He was just obsessed with it,” Fleischer said.
On the set, it was Hardy’s idea to jump into an ice-cold tank of lobsters, mining a restaurant scene for comedy.
“Most actors, you’d pose to them you’re going to have to get in the lobster tank, and they’d balk at it,” Fleischer said. “He initiated it.”
To some, “Venom” is perhaps an audition to enter Marvel’s “Avengers” lineup, a la Spidey. But for Hardy, the question is whether Venom stands up among all the other superheroes.
“Could you see him in a combination of movies, whether it’s for DC or Marvel? Can you see Eddie Brock and Venom work with any of your other options? And if you can, that’s successful,” Hardy said.
Having success — commercial, not just critical — is one of the big reasons he took “Venom” in the first place. His actress wife, Charlotte Riley, and sons did not accompany him to the shoot in Atlanta.
“Things have got to change significantly,” he said. “It’s another good reason to transition into things that maybe are slightly more lucrative and look at the option of saying, ‘I need time to be here as a parent.’ Like, months of being a parent.”
“I want to pour more into that because it doesn’t last.” he added with a laugh: “Unless you’re Bill Murray.”